Social Media + Startups = PR still needed?
In the new state Social Media has turned the web, with so-called ease to generate word of mouth and awareness using bloggers, forums, and any social media tools to get noticed, do we still need PR if working in the tech field? Loic Le Meur, serial entrepreneur founder of Seesmic and blogger for many years, “stopped using any PR firm a while ago just focusing on users” (via Twitter). Robert Scoble explains here that he’s now “sick and tired of getting pitched crappy thing after crappy thing”, and he much more prefer to get noticed of great new applications and ideas by friends of him or smart people he’s connected with. Steve Rubel, a famous PR blogger, tells us how bad he feels to receive hundreds of PR pitches from startups or Fortune 500 companies that he has to delete without even responding because they’re really bad. So what to do now? no more PR since they’re spamming influent bloggers (like Steve, and he knows well about PR pitching since he’s in that business for long), no more PR since Loic did manage to get traction for his business focusing on users, no more PR since Robert says he doesn’t have anymore interest in the emails PR pitches he receives and prefer to ask his friends and connections about new thrilling applications? No that sure. To be honest, I do not like PR people but I think they’re really useful, if well managed.
As Marshall Kirkpatrick explains in his ReadWrite Web post, there are pros and cons in using PR for tech companies, refusing the simple fact that “Great technologies find their own audience when their undeniable value is discovered by one person and passed on to the world at large”. That sole fact can’t be enough to decide or not to hire PR and tell they’re useful or useless. If you have innate skill for communication and know well how to deal with your messages you’re sending to people, that’s just fine. You are more gifted than average and won’t need PR. Unless you do prefer to invest your time in more valuable things than PR (get focus on what are the skills other people don’t have and make your business run).
Loic Le Meur is in the case he’s skills for communication. His background has given him knowledge and proofs that he can deal with it: he’s been the “French pope of the blogs” and a great web agency CEO. He’s then sharp and perfectly knows how PR and communication area works. Using these skills and his innate skill to networking, he’s manage to turn his blog into a PR tool, as he’s been doing just fine with LeWeb conference in Paris. But we do not all have that background and skills.
Robert Scoble is one of those not-that-nerdy guys that have had the gut feeling they should be blogging to step-up. He’s interested in tech and what he’s been doing is great. Steve Rubel belongs to that same breed of people but works in PR. They receive tons of PR pitches that sound to be lame and crap. Fine. But we can’t just say PR is useless. PR has to change its course and learn from the new tools and needs of the famous and influent bloggers, since they now belong to the PR target field.
If you don’t have skills in PR, just let smart people do their jobs. But manage them. And ask them if it’s worth doing PR. They do know well people you’re targeting (if not, just run, and find someone who do), they’d tell you if it’s right to go connect with them now, and help you reach them the way they’d be responsive and caring. But don’t think PR is the gate to the hall of fame. They’re tools, like your web platform, website, blog, or marketing. They won’t change your product, they won’t make it smarter or create traction to make people need your product. They would help you with the message to spread, the way to get in touch with people who would make your day or kill you, they would provide you with contacts you did not imagine possible to leverage to *potentially* be more publicly congratulated or killed. Don’t use PR to crash test your potential. Use PR to leverage your business potential. And then people like Rubel or Scoble would be happy to meet you and spend some time speaking of you. Because they’d be glad someone provides them with interesting stuff to speak of and get more fame from it.
Photo Credit: v.hung
